Abstract
We propose a hybrid laser system consisting of a semiconductor external cavity laser associated to an intra-cavity diamond etalon doped with nitrogen-vacancy color centers. We consider laser emission tuned to the infrared absorption line that is enhanced under the magnetic field dependent nitrogen-vacancy electron spin resonance and show that this architecture leads to a compact solid-state magnetometer that can be operated at room-temperature. The sensitivity to the magnetic field limited by the photonshot-noise of the output laser beam is estimated to be less than 1pT/Hz. Unlike usual NV center infrared magnetometry, this method would not require an external frequency stabilized laser. Since the proposed system relies on the competition between the laser threshold and an intracavity absorption, such laser-based optical sensor could be easily adapted to a broad variety of sensing applications based on absorption spectroscopy.
Highlights
In recent years, the optical detection of the magnetic resonance between the electronic triplet S = 1 spin states of the negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color center in diamond and the measurements of the Zeeman shifts induced by an applied magnetic field has been used in a variety of solid-state magnetometers [1]
Compared to a single spin, the magnetic field sensitivity of an ensemble o√f NV centers contained in a macroscopic single-crystal diamond sample is increased by N where N is the number of NV centers used as magnetic sensors [6]
Using a rate equation model of the photodynamics of the NV center that takes into account its two charge states, we evaluate the magnetic field sensitivity of this hybrid laser system
Summary
The stimulated emission from the NV centers can be strongly affected by the excited state absorption (ESA) phenomena and by the photoconversion between the negativelycharged state NV−, with the previously described spin triplet structure, and the neutral charge state NV0 [22] These parasitic effects can make the implementation of NV− center magnetometry based on the visible optical laser amplification challenging [23]. The laser threshold of the whole system is sensitive to the applied magnetic field via the losses on the IR transition induced by the spin resonance of the NV centers In this scheme, the ESA in the gain medium becomes irrelevant and has a marginally negative effect on the IR signal absorption efficiency. We discuss the possible advantages of this sensor architecture for practical applications
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